Have you been touched by cancer?

It has replaced cardiovascular diseases as the leading cause of death. It is said that one in four people will die from cancer in the United States. Have you been touched by cancer. Share your stories.

• Fuck Cancer. Fuck it right in the ear!

• It touched me inappropriately.

  Lance%20Armstrong

• It took my wife.

• Mother died of cancer at 55, father at 82. Two friends and a manager, all survived.

• "It is said that one in four people will die from cancer in the United States." What a ridiculous statement. Please give us a source, or fuck off.

• R5 here are the stats

  http%3A//www.cancure.org/statistics.htm

• I have lost three people in the last 13 months to cancer: a former student (18), my former boss and friend (59), and my father (73). There was a student in the 7th grade where I teach who just died in November of cancer. It truly sucks.

• Damn cancer got my mother and my father. My mother, a hospice nurse, beat breast cancer. Then 15 yrs later it spread to her voice box. She beat that. Then the damn thing spread to her good kidney. Emory hospital did a partialdectomy and she beat that, without having to go on dialysis. Then 4 yrs later the damn thing was in her brain and bones. Only good thing was that the brain cancer was suppressing her pain, so she didn't feel anything but an occasional headache. 3 doctors gave her a month to live. She lasted 3 yrs. Long enough to see her only granddaughter born (by my sister). Claire was 2 when she died. My dad was a life long smoker and lung cancer caught up with him at the age of 72. Spread to his liver and the lymph nodes of his pelvic area. Once diagnosed, he went within 2 months.

• No, but my daddy done touched me for a dollar!!!

  Honey%20Boo%20Boo

• My stepfather just died a few months ago of Pancreatic Cancer. He was 61.

• It touched me in the morning....and then just walked away.

• I just finished treatment for colorectal cancer. I'm 51. Yes, it was a pain in the ass.

• My mother died of leukemia 5 years ago. My father died of cancer last year.

• yes

• I have it now. Slow growing, on meds. Operation in the future. I have lost friends, family co-workers. A real plague in our time. I read recently that no real progress has been made to combat it. Just ways to treat it.

• Yes,I was touched by cancer, but I threatened legal action and it backed off real fast.

• I'm sorry R15. That sucks. I have two friends that lived and an 80 year old Mom who died of lung cancer.

• Lost a very good friend to cancer a couple years ago. She was a mother of two young children. Lost my grandmother many years ago. Lost my grandfather when I was very young to pancreatic cancer.

• Mother. Grandmother.

• My grandparents all died of it. (Although one met the Ring Lardner description of a character who widowed by the combined ravages of cancer and her own personality.) Both parents died of it. My brother died of it. I had it, but I'm apparently fine now. Touched by it? Slathered in it.

• Have it. Mom, Dad, two aunts all died from it. It's sort of a downer, to put it mildly.

• R21, I think I still win. And one is never free of it, in the sense that one is always aware of it. But I hope that your treatment goes as well as mine appears to have gone.

  R20

• My mother had cervical cancer but it was caught early and she has been cancer-free for over 10 years now. My father was admitted to the hospital one night with pneumonia. They found lymphoma and brain cancer. He died about 2 months later (three years ago yesterday).

• Yep. It's no biggie.

  tig%20notaro%2C%20cured%20in%20a%20month

• Thanks, R20. Appreciate it.

  r21

• [quote]And one is never free of it Didn't want to hear that but it is a fact. I'm at high risk for relapse, but need to be aware of the truth. Spent my entire career in AIDS research and watched many guys die horribly since the early 80's. Have always been an activist. But when I got cancer, I became a weak baby, too sick and tired to ask questions of my doctors, too embarrassed to talk about it with friends, family, and neighbors. I've had a great life and at several points during symptoms and then shitty chemo/irradiation treatment, I just didn't care about the outcome. The battle ain't over, but I feel pretty good now and am eating like a pig. I still won't talk about my case with those close to me. Just don't want to dwell on it. I lost one dear friend -- a non-smoker -- to lung cancer, and another to breast cancer. I know a dozen women and men who survived breast or prostate cancer. There were times when forcing myself to wear Depends (aka Adult Male Disposable Underwear) and drinking Ensure was the only way I could make it to the hospital for treatment and testing. Then I realized that I was having White Peoples' Problems. Am lucky to have health insurance. Best wishes to r20 and r21. Hang in there.

  r12

• No, but I've been touched by an angel...

  Della%20Reese

• Surgery for prostate cancer three years ago. So far, so good.

  The%20%22good%22%20cancer

• I had cancer, but a quick orchiectomy got rid of it. I never thought much about it. The 5 year surveillance was annoying though. The other annoyance is that I had a prosthetic testicle put in for appearance sake and it can hurt like hell when it's cold and the nut sack draws tight. Since it's solid it presses on the real one and it feels like I've been kicked in the nuts.

• Anyone born after about 1965 has grown up awash in chemicals. We breathe them, eat them, drink them, bathe in them. Chemicals in use in the US (and most of the world) do not have to be proven unharmful before being put to use. It has to be proven that they are harmful over a long period of time. And guess who the guinea pigs are?

• Cancer, schmancer

  F.%20Drescher

• Father, prostate, and it had spread too far too fast to be seriously treatable. He never once said the word, or complained. He was brave. 70. I miss him.